Two critical security vulnerabilities have been discovered in the open-source CasaOS personal cloud software, posing a significant risk of arbitrary code execution and system takeover. Tracked as CVE-2023-37265 and CVE-2023-37266, these flaws carry a high CVSS score of 9.8 out of 10.
Security researcher Thomas Chauchefoin from Sonar, who identified these vulnerabilities, explained that they allow attackers to bypass authentication requirements and gain full access to the CasaOS dashboard. Even more concerning is that CasaOS’s support for third-party applications could be exploited to execute arbitrary commands, potentially leading to persistent access to the device or entry into internal networks.
These vulnerabilities were responsibly disclosed on July 3, 2023, and subsequently addressed in version 0.4.4, released by the maintainers at IceWhale on July 14, 2023. CVE-2023-37265 stems from the incorrect identification of the source IP address, enabling unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary commands as root on CasaOS instances. Meanwhile, CVE-2023-37265 allows unauthenticated attackers to create arbitrary JSON Web Tokens (JWTs), gaining access to features that typically require authentication and executing arbitrary commands as root on CasaOS instances.
Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could circumvent authentication restrictions, granting attackers administrative privileges on vulnerable CasaOS instances. Security researcher Chauchefoin highlighted the risk-prone nature of identifying IP addresses at the application layer and cautioned against relying on it for security decisions due to the various headers that can carry this information, which may be open to interpretation, leading to security vulnerabilities. Additionally, he noted that different frameworks can have their quirks and complexities, necessitating expert knowledge to navigate effectively.
